George Verwer had a query.

When the 18-year-old and his good friend completed praying in a dorm room in Maryville, Tennessee, Verwer checked out his faculty buddy and requested, “Properly? Are you able to go?”

Dale Rhoton was startled. He had solely simply heard Verwer’s concept that they need to promote what they owned and use the cash to purchase a truck that summer season, fill it with Spanish-language editions of the Gospel of John, and drive it to Mexico, the place 70 p.c of individuals didn’t have entry to Scriptures. They’d solely simply prayed about it.

“George,” he stated, “it takes longer than that.”

Verwer didn’t see why it ought to. The long run founding father of Operation Mobilisation (OM) noticed a non secular want. They might meet that want. The remaining didn’t matter to him.

“His one all-consuming ardour in life has been to be a channel, whereby individuals would change into long-term buddies of Jesus,” Rhoton later wrote. “His consolation zone is breaking out of his consolation zone. He solely actually feels safe when he’s risking all of it.”

That lifelong “Verwer fervor” for missions moved untold numbers of Christians to cross borders, cultures, and continents to proclaim the excellent news of God’s love. OM grew to become one of many largest mission organizations of the twentieth century, sending out 1000’s yearly on short- and long-term journeys. OM at present has about 5,000 employees from 100 totally different nations. An estimated 300 different mission companies have been additionally began on account of contact with OM or launched by former OMers.

Verwer died Friday on the age of 84.

Lindsay Brown, who led the Worldwide Fellowship of Evangelical College students for 40 years, remembered him as an impressive missionary chief.

“By way of the sheer vary of actions and the companies and leaders it has spawned, I feel OM is unparalleled,” he stated. “And I feel George is the preeminent North American missionary statesman of the final 60 years. He has had a exceptional ministry.”

Verwer was born July 3, 1938, to Eleanor Caddell Verwer and George Verwer Sr., a Dutch immigrant who labored as an electrician. He was raised in Wyckoff, New Jersey, outdoors New York Metropolis. The household belonged to a Reformed Church in America congregation, however the elder George Verwer hardly ever attended, and to the youthful, church appeared principally like a social membership.

Younger Verwer was an athlete and a Boy Scout however spent loads of time chasing ladies and entering into bother. Most of it was thought of “shenanigans” by the requirements of the day, however Verwer additionally began a fireplace in some woods in Bergen County and, as a younger teen, broke into somebody’s dwelling and was caught by police.

Information of the incident prompted an area Christian lady named Dorothea Clapp to start out praying for Verwer, that he would discover religion in Jesus. As he later described it, she put him on her “Holy Spirit hit listing.”

Clapp additionally mailed Verwer a Gospel of John. The e book didn’t instantly make an impression, however three years later, he felt compelled to attend a Billy Graham campaign in Madison Sq. Backyard. He and some buddies took the bus 30 miles to listen to Graham preach on March 5, 1955. On the invitation to commit his life to Christ, Verwer went ahead. He was moved, he stated, by the message that God cherished him and will use him.

“I discovered that he might use me, not by crushing my temperament, or displaying me up for the wretch I used to be,” Verwer later wrote, “however somewhat providing me love and dealing by way of the Holy Spirit.”

Again in New Jersey, he instantly went to work telling others about Jesus. He distributed 1,000 copies of John at his highschool and arranged a gospel campaign. Greater than 100 individuals got here ahead to commit their lives to Christ, based on native newspaper studies on the time, together with one Verwer cared about rather a lot: his personal father.

The younger Verwer didn’t respect it on the time, but it surely was clear he had a present for organizing—mobilizing—Christians. He received 5 highschool college students to share their testimonies and preach at his evangelistic occasion. He additionally received greater than 30 youngsters at his mainline Dutch Reformed church to take part in a Bible-reading marathon, regardless of the skepticism of the pastor who advised a reporter he was initially involved the younger individuals wouldn’t learn with the correct decorum.

A couple of years later, in school, Verwer didn’t simply promote his stuff and fund a mission journey to Mexico. He satisfied two buddies, Rhoton and Walter Borchard, to do the identical factor.

Verwer, in fact, didn’t actually know what he was doing, handing out tracts and Scripture and attempting to arrange a Bible correspondence college in Monterey. He made, as he later recalled, some “fairly heavy blunders.” He determined he wanted extra training and transferred to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. There, when he considered giving up on missions altogether, he heard evangelical minister Oswald J. Smith communicate at chapel. Smith emphasised the significance of being the place God desires you to be and dedicating your self absolutely to Christ.

Verwer was convicted. He ran down the aisle—“only one, kind of, nut case”—and repented of his lack of affection.

“God broke my coronary heart,” he stated. “I noticed issues in my coronary heart weren’t proper, and I knew I needed to reply. … I should be prepared to take dangers for the dominion.”

Later, when he was urging younger individuals to go overseas for a summer season or a number of years, he would emphasize his reluctance and God’s persistence to make audiences chortle.

“God noticed me,” he would say. “One cussed Dutchman. And gave me a missionary kick. I’ve been in orbit ever since.”

Verwer organized a second journey to Mexico in 1958, and when he met and married his spouse, Drena Knect, in 1960, their “honeymoon” was additionally a missionary journey to Mexico. The newly married couple have been so dedicated to their gospel journey that Verwer tried to economize for the mission discipline by bartering their marriage ceremony cake for a tank of gasoline on the drive south. The primary gasoline station attendant declined and gave them their gasoline at no cost. The second agreed to the trade.

The Verwers spent six months in Mexico after which moved to Spain, which was then managed by the fascist dictator Francisco Franco, who had kicked out Protestant pastors, banned all public worship exercise and bulletins, and seized Protestant Bibles. The couple received into bother, although, once they took a visit to a different totalitarian regime, driving to the Soviet Union with a automobile stuffed with Bibles to distribute. They have been stopped by authorities and ejected from the nation.

As Verwer was deported to Austria, praying about what he ought to do subsequent, he was struck by the thought that he wasn’t an excellent missionary however was good at mobilizing others. He watched a bus of European vacationers load up for the USSR and had the concept that’s what he needs to be doing: sending others.

The subsequent yr, the ministry, then known as Ship the Gentle, organized round 2,000 short-term mission journeys into Communist-controlled nations. They expanded to Muslim nations in 1963 after which began mobilizing missionaries to India.

Peter Dance, one of many younger individuals from England who drove a truck stuffed with gospel literature into Japanese Europe and India, recalled that it was scary and exhilarating.

“I had the sensation of There is no such thing as a one there to assist me anymore besides Jesus,” he stated. “Earlier than I crossed that border, I had every thing I wanted; even my mom was there if I wanted her. I went to India many occasions, and thru breakdowns and difficulties, the Lord all the time got here by way of.”

Christianity At the moment described these first recruits as “countercultural younger individuals who have been open to journey”—“gospel pilgrims” who have been “inclusive, evangelistic, and itinerant.”

Twenty 5 of them wrote a manifesto that Verwer printed and distributed to church buildings, youth teams, and Christian bookstores all through the US and Europe.

“The Lord Jesus Christ was a revolutionary!” it stated. “And we are revolutionaries! … Throughout the sphere of absolute, literal obedience to his instructions lies the facility that can evangelize the world.”

Verwer mixed the decision for whole and radical dedication to Christ with the concept of a short-term mission, decreasing the expectations of service and making it simpler for individuals to get began. He believed God would use those that have been prepared—even when they weren’t able to make years-long commitments, hadn’t attended Bible faculty, or had tousled their lives. God, in spite of everything, redeemed messes. God works not simply regardless of human errors however in them and thru them.

At all times important of missions “specialists” with well-developed theories and strategies, Verwer would finally name his method “messiology.” Christians ought to all the time attempt to keep away from making messes, and a few errors might be spiritually devastating. However, he stated, those that put their religion in Jesus shouldn’t neglect that God saves sinners.

“I meet individuals for whom, humanly talking, life has not labored out nicely,” he wrote. “They don’t seem to be on Plan A or Plan B, however extra like Plan M. After I communicate with them, I remind them of the large alphabet and urge them to embrace radical grace and press on.”

He argued, too, that there was nobody proper option to proclaim the gospel. Missions-minded Christians wanted to experiment, contextualize, and frequently reevaluate what labored.

“Don’t now we have 2,000 years of proof that God works in a wide range of methods?” he wrote. “Can’t we settle for that God works in numerous methods amongst totally different teams of individuals? The work of God is bigger than any fellowship or group.”

Verwer was generally compelled to experiment and alter OM’s mannequin quickly. In 1968, when he was compelled out of India, OM determined to show management over to Indians and arrange Operation Mobilisation India as a definite group, which went on to plant 1000’s of church buildings.

Different occasions, Verwer took leaps of religion that didn’t appear needed in any respect. In 1970, the missions group bought a ship. The official OM historical past notes that the concept of shopping for a ship was “outlandish” and nobody within the group had any concept the right way to make that buy—should much less sail a vessel to ports world wide, the place they may give away Christian books and inform individuals about Jesus.

“Some thought I had misplaced my marbles!” Verwer later recalled.

However OM bought a Dutch ship named Umanak, rechristened it Logos, and in the end sailed it 230,000 nautical miles, to 250 totally different ports, ministering to six.5 million individuals. The ministry added a second ship in 1977.

This “tough and prepared” method to ministry didn’t all the time work out. The Logos sank in 1988, taking with it $125,000 price of Christian books. Extra upsetting to Verwer, a number of OM missionaries have been harm or killed in automobile accidents world wide. Typically they received in bother with native authorities. And a few of Verwer’s concepts have been unhealthy.

“I’ve received too many concepts—my inventive juices are overflowing,” he advised a bunch of Moody college students. “Our imaginative and prescient in Christian ministry will get mingled with ego. … I’ll let you know I received in some embarrassing conditions.”

Verwer additionally struggled with sin and doubt. He known as himself a “pure backslider.” However in the long run his love for Jesus and his ardour for telling individuals across the globe about God’s love for them overcame every thing else. One in every of his assistants, who went on to change into a Chicago pastor, stated Verwer embodied the sort of divine love described in John 3:16.

“I don ’t know that there ’s anyone who loves the entire world as a lot as George does—so far as people are involved—and has a need for them to return into relationship with Jesus,” Mark Soderquist stated.

Verwer, for his half, thought crucial a part of the Christian life was love.

“There is no such thing as a extra biblical instructing than love, and other than love there is no such thing as a biblical instructing,” he wrote. “You aren’t orthodox if you’re not humble. You aren’t ‘Bible-believing’ if you don’t love.”

Verwer stepped down as director of OM in 2013, turning management over to Peter Maiden. He continued, nevertheless, to talk to teams of younger Christians world wide. He would deliver out an enormous inflatable globe, placed on his trademark globe jacket, and ask them, repeatedly, a model of the query he requested his faculty good friend when he was simply 18.

“Properly? Are you able to go?”

“If you happen to spend two years abroad,” Verwer stated, “there’s a excessive likelihood you’re by no means going to be the identical when you come again. You’ll have seen how God solutions prayer and the way the Holy Spirit modifications lives, and also you’ll have caught a glimpse of what God is doing world wide.”

Verwer is survived by his spouse, Drena, and their three youngsters, Ben, Daniel, and Christa.

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